


Black Heart

by SummerDarlings



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adultery, Aromantic Character, Cast Away, Coming of Age, Demisexual Character, Drama, Family Drama, I'll add canon characters as I go along, Infidelity, Marriage, Multi, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Religion, Romance, Slavery, also I think this is going to be really long, dark themes, human suffering, just as a word of warning there will be eventual rape/non-con but it will not be between Dragon/oc, young Dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 05:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5773924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerDarlings/pseuds/SummerDarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Washed up on a unfamiliar beach and in the worst possible circumstances for someone like him, Dragon depends on survival instincts until he can find a way out of Hell.  </p>
<p>During the long wait, he crosses the path of two sisters too many times to be a coincidence. He begins to wonder who they are and how exactly they have the prestige they seem to firmly have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Heart

“Hey, are you alive?”

 

Despite the uncomfortable feeling that came with being sodden like a drowned rat, Dragon could have sworn he was on fire.

His throat was caught in a slow burn and scratched from the salt rubbing him raw. His flesh was suffering, his head banged to the gentle crashing of water and distant calls of seagulls.

 

His body was hindering as he found out trying to shuffle his arms into action and in a way he was glad- he didn’t want to move yet. He was vibrating, the sharp chill crawling under his coarse skin, every now and then a dreaded, fresh onslaught of wetness reaching up his legs and away again.

Another thing, he could feel people watching him. Irritatingly so, their words echoing around his head like lost memories or components of a nightmare.

 

“Hey, _hey._ Ko! Come look at this guy!”

 

Dragon winced. God he wished this voice would shut up.       

 

Is he alive? Dragon wasn’t so sure. Maybe Hell hadn’t finally accepted his application, Dragon was sure he deserved it.

 

He’s agonizingly parched. Water, water is what you need now, his survival instincts poking and prodding at his sensibility.

 

He could feel bodies getting closer, voices getting clearer. He gave a try to force his eyes open.

 

They split, like a thread tugged from its seams and he could just make out blurred figures, looking through a steamed window of his glazed eyes.

 

“Look, his eyes are opening”

 

“Yes I can see that; you don’t need to narrate every little thing --”

 

“Oh my Goodness do you think he can hear us?”

 

Using the little strength he had, Dragon demands his limbs to pilot themselves, they were too heavy, too much unnecessary weight. Disorientated, his vision kaleidoscopes, his sight was getting clearer as he blinked away the dung of the sea and sleep. 

 

His eyes roll around him. He was on sand and there was the sea- alright, so he had washed up on a beach. How perceptive of him.

 

He winced at his throbbing head, taking a deep swallow, flinching at how his saliva dragged down his throat. His thoughts are painfully slow and he’s mortified when he realises he had left the voices talking at him to his last priority.

 

Turning his head two glowing eyes were looking right at him in – some what morbid – fascination. Assuming they _were_ girls - Dragon had enough experience in the matter to know gender wasn't so black and white. One had serious expression on her face and taking into account the deep creases that etched out her face, Dragon guessed this was the popular look on her. The other was beaming, in excitement perhaps. A childish glee protruded from her features. Her grin didn’t fit how he was feeling and he took this as some higher being mocking him, inflicting punishment through a smiling, entertained face. 

 

Had Dragon turned into a washed up shell? Sea foam dissolving from his edges, did they find him empty and waiting for him to speak to them like hearing the rushing of blood whispering through a conch. They would pick him up store him in their collection of memories and pretty things. Not that Dragon thought himself pretty- for that they would need to pick off the dung, the erosions of the surge of the sea, wipe everything he was.

 

God he felt like shit. When was the last time he had slept? Actual sleep. That didn’t count as passing out.

 

Did he want to talk to these strangers or did he just want to use his human abilities? To repair them after their brief abandonment?

 

God, did his mouth taste vile. Was he even breathing properly?

 

“Can you hear us? Can you speak? Are you one of those mutes? If you are how do you talk to people --”

 

“ _Stop would you._ He could be anyone; he could be a criminal or a _pirate,_ we really should leave…”

 

A very not serious face frowned their rose bud mouth, looking like a perplexed child.  

 

“Yeah? What’s he going to do, splutter all over us? He looks pretty weak to me”

 

At that, Dragon drew up and coughed up to his side, spitting back at him as it splattered onto the sand. It was mostly sea water, running away into the soft sand taking his remaining respectability with it.  

 

He groaned, not at that moment caring there was an audience around to hear it. He was too ahead, too damn _thirsty._ The sea water making its surprise appearance, reintroduced himeself itched and itched at him until he could bear it no more.  

 

“Water…”, his voice flouted. Dragon had forced himself up with one arm, hand swallowed up with his excretions. It took effort to speak, but he felt a desperation and his force clawing its way up his wind pipe. His voice was hoarse and in result, not to its full effect.  _How annoying._

The curious girl jolted, losing her balance where she had been crouching. She threw out a hand to balance herself as her whole body rocked dramatically.

 

The other with the long frowned face, eyes coined, her red mouth forming a perfect O. Quickly, as if snapped out of some spiritual trance, she moved to rummage through her bag that was over her shoulder and handed him a light flask. Dragon snatched it from her, frantically twisting the lid and immediately pressing it to his lips.

 

After, Dragon would have regretted this rudeness, but supposed it was made up for how pathetic he likely looked in his desperation.

 

The bottle had only been two thirds full. He wanted to lap up the droplets he imagined running its way down the inside of the flask, but instead he throws it to the side, revelling in how good water had tasted, how much it had god damned hurt and how much more he wants. He isn’t quenched, not by a long shot, but it’ll do for now.

 

He leaves some to slosh about in his mouth and regretfully spits it out to his side. Away from the two as much as possible.

 

Gradually, he realises how lucky he’s been and looks up to the two whose eyes he had felt following him. They were crouching and the skirts of their dresses were growing damp from the moving shore.

 

They stared at each other, both getting used to the prospect that he could exist outside the realms of unconsciousness. And Dragon building the strength to use his voice.  

 

The girl with the excitable eyes quickly recovered and immediately leaned into Dragon space. Her nose inches away from his own.

 

“Hey, are you a pirate?”

 

“No”

 

“Are you a criminal?”

 

“No” Dragon lied.

 

“Are you going to hurt us?”

 

“No” He answered truthfully. Not if he didn’t have to anyway, were the hanging subtitles in the air.

 

She stared at him a little longer, blankly, a toothy smile starting to stretch across her face.  

 

“Why are you just laying here?”

 

Her companion rolled her eyes and Dragon eyes narrowed in confusion.

 

“It wasn’t on purpose”

 

“Yes but you’re here anyway”

 

Something tickled the back of his aching mind with how this conversation was going, despite its lack of quality, their something oddly uncanny in the fashion it was turning. A familiar path of thinking that Dragon had gone down before.

 

“…I suppose I am”

 

“Are you a merman?”

 

“Do I look like a merman?”

 

“No I guess not; I wish you were, that’s probably why I asked”

 

“Sorry to disappoint you”

 

“That’s okay”

 

“ _Sister”_ , The other finally hissed, looking quite done with this conversation. “If you want to help him than he clearly needs medical help not wasting his breath on unnecessary comments”.

 

That was a point, he did feel like shit. He tried to keep the landscape of his face clear but he also wanted to throw up. She was right he needed medical help. But not a hospital and he wouldn’t even consider asking these people, but he didn’t have the luxury of choice at this moment.

 

Dragon squinted at the world around him, shielded by the suns glare rising from the sea. All he could see were tall cliffs with piles of rocks turning into sand and the ocean. The sea was the kind of blue that you didn’t quite believe existed. It glowed, its movements solid and powerful, destructive. Very generic and very little he could go on.

 

He would need to ask them.

 

“Where am --”

 

“We can’t help you”

 

Dragon blinked. _Well,_ he wasn’t expecting that.

 

Dragon raised his brows in question. The funny girl had said it, funny as in peculiar, and curious. Her eyes had wandered out to the horizon. Face tensing, a thinking face. From what Dragon had seen so far, it didn't seem fitting.

 

Not even answer his question? After he had answered theirs?

 

Her companion, no – sister was what she called the other- turned her head to look at her, her feet shuffling, brows furrowing. She looked nervous and slightly surprised.

 

Why the sudden change of interest?

 

“I thought you wanted to help him, that was the whole point of this wasn’t it?”

 

Her sister just shook her head.

 

“We can’t help but that’s how we’re helping you”, she explained, distracted. Her eyes narrowed and she was biting her bottom lip. She was following the group of seagulls flapping and squawking in all directions above lapping water.   

 

“If you go up to that cliff and follow the fence- the only fence- you will see a little house” The funny one started, looking to him again. Eyes growing into disks, glimmering. “Its dark brown and with a bright red roof and exactly three little windows, one on each wall but the back. Its door will be facing away from the sea- there will people there who will help you”.

 

The mischievous smiled returned and she winked at him. She started to stand, her bunched skirts flowing to the ground. The texture of it glimmered like the moonlight spitting against the stirring ocean. The hands she began to click one by one had each finger encrusted with an abundance of rings. Something twitched at the back of Dragon’s mind but the fatigue and indifference that surrounded the subject made him dismiss it.  

 

“We can’t just leave him here! He could be dangerous and besides… like you said he’s weak, we should carry him or…” She frowned, her words failing as if the thoughts had consumed her over speech. This one was tall, when she stood she was heads apart from her sister. She looked uncomfortable, fidgety, bound by some sort of coerced responsibility. Her gown was different, softer looking, more threaded.

 

Dragon wanted to shake his head and would have if he had the energy to do so. _Their faces_ he thought _it’s the faces you need to remember._

The shorter raised a delicate nail to the mouth, as if thinking it over. A low humming sound stretched across the seconds vibrating from behind her lips.

 

“hmmm… Nope” She concluded shortly, smiling again. Dragon was getting more confounded over whether the grins were genuine in its idiocy or purely sadistically sarcastic. 

 

“That’s fine, the information is enough,” he grunted. “Do I need to tell them a name?”

 

“That’s far too valuable for me to give out so easily, don’t you think?” She said it care freely her limbs languid, swinging, stretching.

 

Dragon smirked, a genuine one that pained his cheeks deliciously. “I agree” He rumbled.

 

Lending him one last grin she twisted around and walking down the sea shore. The gentle crashes of the water ruffling her skirt as she tottered down. The taller gave him one last suspicious look and then followed her lead.

 

_Ah, she’s the younger one._ Vaguely surprised by the revelation, he would have thought the shorter one was younger based off how often she got scolded.  

 

A very sudden thought floated to the surface and he caught it. Clutching tightly as it came to him, _Colossus Muga Silk_. The dress that the sun twinkled from like a fish’s moving tail as it shifted around her moving legs. That quality of fabric was elite, expensive and so incredibly rare. The Giant Silk Worm was over farmed even in its original rarity and provided the material that was once typical for nobles to wear. That was almost a century ago. It had almost gone extinct and so the price peaked so high only very few could attain it.

 

His eyes narrowed. They were walking around the closest cliff in the distance, almost disappearing from his view. The taller was still looking back to him, as if she was checking his authenticity or if he was going to come charging at them once she turned her elegant face forwards once and for all. The shorter strode on, albeit it missed any elegance or grace that should have accompanied the elite, expensive material.   

 

Dragon wondered. She seemed rough around the edges, sure, but if she dresses like that… on a beach of all places.

 

Dragon scolded himself. Now was not the time. The tide would be coming in soon and it will get dark. Now his brain was catching up, he had to get moving.

 

He heaved himself up, dragging his foot forward one by one and started his laborious journey to the alleged little house past the cliffs jagged edge.

 

-

 

There was a point where Dragon had to wonder if this journey would ever end.

He knew the answer. But that didn’t stop himself from asking again and again.

 

Maybe he was being melodramatic – he was still young after all.

 

With difficulty Dragon wouldn’t have liked to admit, Dragon made it to the top of the cliff.

 

Figuring there was a reason they didn’t personally lead him anywhere, he avoided the direction the girls had went.

 

He climbed the side of the cliff, clinging to the rocks for dear life, afraid that his muscles might betray him.

 

However, if anyone could credit him for anything, it was his endurance.

 

Once to the top he looked before him. A long field coated the head of the cliffs and in the distance he could see… almost nothing.

 

Frustrated, he threw a glance over his shoulder, where the sun sinking into the far ocean. The sky was turning rosy, and the stain in the distance bleeding orange.

 

He wondered for a moment, if some God somewhere granted him wings in that moment, if he would spread them and fly back to the East Blue.

 

He turned his head back round, squinting.

The yellow grass swayed to and throw as the wind whistled in his ear, sending a harsher chill through his body.

 

A fence was what he needed.

 

He looked to his left to see no fence. And then to his right he saw a black line in the far distance.

 

Hope filled his heart and he sighed in relief. Maybe the girl hadn’t been making things up.

 

Dragon trudged his way over, the fence getting clearer as he approached.

 

It was splintered and faded brown and bruised by the staining grass and the howling wind. Dragon grimaced, thinking how relatable the fence was in that moment.

 

He began walking, tracing the fence, his finger tips skimming the bristly wood as he did so. He wasn’t sure when the little house would show up and it only made the torturous trail even longer.

 

The faded distance peculiarly tones gold in a mixture of grey making Dragon wonder what climate had he ended up in this time. 

 

He was uncomfortable in every possible way- his sodden, rotting clothes, his dripping hair, his beaten body - and whilst he was used to that, some how the long waiting made it so much worse.

 

Dragon was used to having some form of a base, companionship.

 

His heart twinges slightly at the thought, black ashes brushing over his thoughts before he dusts it away. There was very little point in lingering in the past. He had things to do.

 

The landscape was veiled by fog and Dragon could hardly see if this house was approaching. That was until a brown splodge started to form, seemingly where the fence ended.  

 

Dragon released a breath, relieved that maybe he could soon finally rest. He readied himself for whoever would answer the door, a mask of a supplicant- desperation and exhaustion melting over his features. It wasn’t the hardest thing he ever had to convey.

 

The house was exactly as she had said. Dark brown, red roof, three windows, none facing the sea and a door. He knocked, it being the polite thing to do.

 

Three seconds he waited until he indulged himself in leaning a hand against the frame.

 

Dragon stayed silently, listening out for any signs of life in this alien territory. And there was. Floorboards creaked from behind the door, hushed voices humming.

Suddenly the door creaked open and an eye poked out.

It wiped its way up and down Dragon’s dishevelled appearance as a parent would to their child who was about to the leave the house.

 

“Yes? What is it? What do you want?” A hurried voice interrogated from behind the door.

 

Dragon cleared his throat, releasing a recorded choke of wet sobbing.  

“P-please, I need your help Sir. My ship was wrecked a few miles down the shore… I think my whole crew has perished. I am a son of a wealthy merchant, my father sent me as an apprentice to trade our silks across the South Blue. But we were caught in a storm on the way to a remote but flourishing island and our small ship must have snagged a rock… because we started to lose control. Our nine, loyal crewman were flailing at the lines… I know nothing about sailing… so I stood there and did nothing… I let them die. And now a burden like me is supplicating. But despite it all, please, help me!”

 

A lecherous sensation of guilt flooded his stomach as the false words spilled from his lips.

 

He finished his last word, silence filling the void. He waited several seconds, the eye looking careful, as they turned his words over in their head.

 

Suddenly the door swung open, creaking slowly at the hinges, the passage revealed a small figure.

 

He was a small, dark wrinkly thing. The crevices of his face filled with embellishes of folds and folds of skin. The corner of his small eyes drooped and his lips fell into what seemed to Dragon a permanent frown. They were tiny in comparison to Dragon, ragged and stiff, his skin with the lightness and texture of the paper of an onion. As if a gentle wisp of the wind could easily topple him over. His hands folded behind them (no doubt holding some domestic item fashioned for the purpose of a weapon) and back hunched.

 

“That be the biggest load of cobs wallop I’ve ev’r ‘eard.”  

 

_Huh?_

 

“Those kin’ a wor’s will not get pass’d me, no sir”  

 

He opened his mouth, ready to insist and ready to run, no matter how much his exhaustion begged him to curl up right here and indulge in the lull of sleep. Did he deserve it yet? 

“I don’t under --”

“I’ll tell you now, yerr’ safer being honest with me” his eye narrowed, the other was closed tight. Dragon felt cold noticing a dangerous glint in the old mans eyes.

 

Dragon stood, trying to get his back as straight as it could be. Taken aback by the slurred language, as it was nothing he had ever heard before.  

 

“I’m sorry sir but I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

 

The old man sighed, “Nev’r yerr’ min’, come in no’, yerr’ look like yerr’ coul’ use some tea.”

 

_Do you serve Doctors with that tea?_ Dragon thought drowsily.

 

The old man left the door open wide as he walked back in. The house was too small for him to go far and from where Dragon stood he could see the old man crouching by a small hearth. He settled a black kettle on the top, the insides sloshing audibly and reached for two small clay cups. Engraved with intricate details.

 

Dragons mind tickled. So out of place they seemed.

 

Steam began to rise from the kettle and the old man turned to Dragon as if to say _what you still standing there for?_ Except if this man were the one to say it, Dragon was sure it would be much more authentic.

 

Dragon didn’t hesitate a moment longer and walked in with little effort – it only taking him one and a half of a stride.

 

Closing the door behind him, he for a moment stood their sheepishly, waiting for some form of instruction to sit. Something about being around this old man made Dragon feel like a young child again - inefficient and particularly feeble in the presence of a parent.

 

“Sit.”

 

Dragon sat in the spot he stood.

 

The calm of his legs is ambrosial to his muscles.

 

The old man shuffles towards him, his frail arm reaching and gently lifting Dragons own arm.

 

They were silent, comfortably so, as they waited for the water to boil and Dragon couldn’t help but relish the moment, his limbs relaxing just enough.

In a way, Dragon believed he belonged to it, the quiet, the shadow, the dusk of the night when everyone else was asleep. It wasn’t the companionship of his own thoughts but the camaraderie with the absence of anything to say he found the most contenting.

The old mans eyes were fixated on his task. With kind hands he looked over his wounds and Dragon saw the thick eyebrows begin to furrow, with confusion and slight wonder.

 

Dragon didn’t quite trust him, not yet anyway. So far he hadn’t proven anything particularly suspicious but he hadn’t revealed anything entirely trusting either. He was sure he wasn't trusted either.

 

Not that Dragon could ever really trust anyone. The constant calculation to what extent a person will go was exhausting.

 

The old man wasn’t a Doctor, that much Dragon could tell, but he tended to them with as much efficiency as a mother who constantly bandaged and kissed their children’s boohoos better. The old man didn’t kiss Dragon however.

 

The kettle screeched as the old man finished, lifting himself to pour fill the two cups. He handed one to Dragon who took it gratefully.

 

They were quiet for a moment until Dragon decided he had left it for too long.

 

“Sir,” Dragon began. The old man lifted his head. “If you could direct me to the closest harbour I’ll be grateful.”

 

For a moment there was no response, but the elderly mans glance at him was the turning pages of an extensive book.

 

Confusion. Suspicion. Pity. Exhaustion.

 

Dragon felt his optimism plummeting. Did a harbour not exist here?   

 

The man eyebrow twitched as he stared, sifting Dragon’s eyes for some form of clarity. “Son, do ya’ even know wher’ you be?”

 

_No_

Dragon took a sip, relishing in how the burn nursed his aching throat.

 

The man took his head in his hands and ran it up and down his face.

 

Dragon closed his eyes, sleep ready to wash him over. The sea was audibly mumbling in the distance and even up here, salt wisped under his nose.

“Maybe I am the one better off with honesty” Dragon offered. 

 

The old man poked his head up and looked at him from his one eye. Dragon figured he couldn’t see from the other.  

 

“I’m afraid you have the wors’ of luck my southern friend” the old man started, “yer stuck like the rest of us rats.”

 

“What do you mean?” Dragon sat up, adrenalin gathering itself as tension coiled itself firmly around his apprehension.

 

The old man pursed his thin lips, “People aren’t generally allowed ta’ leave the holy land, not if yerr’ not a noble, a god or anythin’ between. Even then yer’ secure in yerr’ ship with high securr’ity”  

_No_

 

“Anythin' else, yer a slave or a suspicious and that’s enough for them to toss you.”

 

_No, no, no, no, no_

“Yerr’ want a harbour’ to leave? Well, we all do.”

 

_Gods above, you have to be joking._

“Son, yerr’ in Mariejoa and yerr’ wont be able ter’ leave any time soon.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
